A tattoo is a "rapid rhythmic rapping," says our alliterative friend
Noah Webster. It's also the leaving of an indelible mark upon the body –
in this case, upon the AUTO body. I'm a sponge-painter: rap rap rap.
Hence, Car'toos.

Geri, a mosaicist who was my neighbor-vendor at Circus McGurkis one year, called me to say she'd decided to have me paint her van. It's a big van, too, with a Westfalia roof – a roof that opens up into a sort of camper.

Since I have that horrible fear of heights thing (which is really a horrible fear of falling thing), I wondered how I'd be able to get up on that roof to paint it, but I did. Cheryl Cawthon, my acupuncturist of all things, figured out a way for me to set up a scaffold, and my friend Bob Phillips came by one morning with a second ladder. I made him watch me get up and get down again, and I did it without breaking my neck. Al Scott told me to be sure to keep my cell phone with me. I would have been embarrassed to ... what? call the fire department to get me down, like a kitten in a tree in a Dick and Jane book? Yes. Still, there were two times when I thought it might come to that, but I talked myself down (heh), and so now I think I'm all big and brave.

Geri chose these great colors, and said she pretty much wanted vertical stripes. The stripes could be made out of whatever I wanted: squares, balls, snowflakes, whatever. She wanted some Klimt-type poppies and some paisleys. As you can see from the top picture, it looks like a blanket, a tapestry. I really like this van!

The roof is a field of poppies, but I haven't yet seen it from any perspective other than my sitting cross-legged on it, quivering. When Geri opens the roof for camping, she'll take some photos, and when I get 'em, you'll get 'em.

Please email me ...

... to get a current price on turning your car into an art car. I ask for a week, so that the weather and my muse can mess with me all they want. And of course, my studio is in St. Petersburg, Florida. bien50@gmail.com